Benjamin Scott Folds is an American singer and songwriter from North Carolina. Until 1998, he was the frontman for Ben Folds Five (alongside Robert Sledge on bass and Darren Jessee on drums), a piano-rock band that released three full albums to moderate critical success. The band broke up for unknown reasons, but judging from interviews and the fact that they had a reunion concert, it didn't seem to be a bitter break-up. After 2000, he began a reasonably successful solo career. In addition, he produced Has Been, a surprisingly well-regarded album by William Shatner. His album Lonely Avenue was a collaboration with Nick Hornby writing the lyrics.

In early 2012, Folds announced the reunion of his original band, as well as a brand new album to be released in September of that year. As soon as a donation website was put up to help fund the album, the band made enough money to make at least three more albums, meaning we'll be seeing a lot more Ben Folds Five in the coming years.

A Cappella: After hearing a collegiate a cappella group cover his song "Brick", he subsequently got the idea to release a compilation album of his songs covered by collegiate a cappella groups. This also sparked his interest in a cappella music and the reason he's a judge on The Sing Off.

Whether solo or with Ben Folds Five, he encourages the audience to perform the horn solo in "Army".

"Not The Same" seems to be a Spiritual Successor to this practice, in which Ben splits the audience into three sections to sing the harmonic "Ahhh"s.

In "Song For The Dumped," he typically insists that the audience sings lines such as "fuck you too!"

"Rock This Bitch," which, if requested enough by the crowd (and if he's in the mood), he'll improvise a song on the spot around the titular lyrics.

"Underground" has a spoken opening, wherein the first line is said by Darren: "I was never cool in school, I'm sure you don't remember me." In live shows, this line gets a crowd response of, "Who the fuck are you?!"

Taken from the live version off of Naked Baby Photos. It was recorded in their hometown, and a friend of theirs yelled it, and the mics picked it up. Now it's a staple of the song live.

The audience usually hollers the afore-mentioned Atomic F-Bomb during "Rockin' The Suburbs."

Also on "Annie Waits". The titular Annie always waits on her unnamed signficant other to come back from work/wherever, and she's getting tired of waiting. The singer, meanwhile, pines for her and hopes that when Annie finally leaves her significant other, she'll be with him instead. But at the end of the song he sings:

Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In the sublimely silly "Draw a Crowd", "Now when pretty phrases don't mean nothing / And I wanna sell 'em, I sing the line again / So smooth, you can hear the beard / So smooth, you can hear the beard / Three times is poetry / So smooth, you can hear the beard"

"Hiroshima" is an energetic song about him attempting to dive into a crowd in, of course, Hiroshima, only for he crowd to not understand and let him fall. He got a concussion. And bled on the keyboard. This is based off a true story. Depending on how dark you like it, It could double as a Crowning Moment of Funny.

"Password" is a crooning, mellow song about a jealous boyfriend hacking into his ex-girlfriend's email account, only to find out she's been cheating on him this whole time.

"Steven's Last Night In Town" is about a self-important asshole... done as a klezmer song.

"You to Thank" is probably the happiest song you'll ever hear about marrying too soon and being trapped in a loveless marriage.

"Fair" is a peppy tune about terrible things that happened to people in bad relationships, indcluding a man being hit and killed by his wife's car and another committing suicide in front of a huge crowd because his girlfriend broke up with him. But hey, all is fair in love!

"Hiro's Song" is another peppy song about an elderly, egocentric, and overall Jerkass man who left his family to date with his secretary, who's so young that she went to school with his daughter.

"The Secret Life of Morgan Davis" starts as a jazzy song about an older man's boring life as a stockbroker, but quickly turns into a jazzy song about his risque life as a drug-dealer. Sample lyrics:

He wants the lights, the jazz

A piece of ass,

A toothless bitch who'll blow him for a vial of crack!

He cooks his junk in some Gatorade,

And scores a bag of chronic on the East MLK!

Both from Over the Hedge: "Family Of Me," an upbeat tune from the perspective of a lonely character who's attempting denial about how badly his life is going, and "Heist," a rocking number about the excesses of suburban life.

Old Man Conversation Song: Parodied in "Uncle Walter". The named uncle is crazy and talks about riding through the sky in his magical armchair and cooking up a mail order scheme with his son, among other things.

Pop-Star Composer: He wrote four new songs, re-recorded an old one and covered another for the Over the Hedge soundtrack. His involvement is wildly regarded as one of the film's best aspects.

Precision F-Strike: "The Battle of Who Could Care Less", "Rockin' The Suburbs", among others

Several in Rocking the Suburbs, including Michael Jackson, Quiet Riot, and Jon Bon Jovi.

"Not The Same" mentions Ben Folds Five bassist Robert Sledge. As does "Rubber Sled" by Ben Folds' side project Fear Of Pop, sort of: The song initially sounds like it's based around a repeated sample of Ben Folds yelling "rubber sled!", but just once he lets the voice clip go on long enough to reveal that it's actually "Robert Sledge on the bass guitar!".

From "The Battle Of Who Could Care Less": "See, I got your old ID, and you're all dressed up like The Cure."

Songs for Silverman was supposed to be named for Ben Folds' A&R representative Ben Goldman, because Ben Folds was frequently sending him his demos for the album. The record label nixed the title, so "Goldman" became "Silverman". Related is the online-only Silverman bonus album Songs for Goldfish.

Singing Simlish: He very briefly scats in "Effington". See Saying Sound Effects Out Loud above. A couple of Ben Folds Five songs also have this - "Steven's Last Night In Town" has a scatted bridge, while the chorus of "Fair" consists entirely of "Ba ba ba".

Studio Chatter: Prevalent throughout Whatever And Ever Amen. The Speed Graphic EP version of "Dog" (not to be confused with "Errant Dog") ends with Ben taking a cellphone call from his then-wife during the instrumental outro, eventually telling her "We're doin' a vocal track. Um, you're all over it now".

Take That: "Rockin' the Suburbs" is a direct Take That to Korn after they called out Ben Folds Five for not being a heavy rock band in Spin Magazine.

"I'm rockin' the suburbs! Just like Michael Jackson did! I'm rockin' the suburbs! Except that he was talented! I'm rockin' the suburbs! I take the checks and face the facts That some producer with computers Fixes all my shitty tracks!"

From his album Lonely Avenue, the song A Working Day is a highly sarcastic Take That to an internet critic.

Some guy on the 'net thinks I suck, and he should know- He's got his own blog! [...] I'm a loser, and a poser! It's over, it's over! I mean it and I quit! Everything I write is shit!

"One Angry Dwarf And 200 Solemn Faces" is one to all of the kids who picked on him in school who made him feel worthless.

Take That Me: Present in "Army," which was based on a conversation Ben had with his dad (quoted at the beginning of the song) and parodying his early years.

"Rockin The Suburbs" - He lists his producer in the liner notes as "Shitty Track Fixer," a reference to a line from the song.

Ben Folds Five originally marketed themselves as "punk rock for pussies."

The cover of Ben Folds Live is a picture of and exasperated Ben with his back to an entire audience giving him the finger.

The Villain Sucks Song: There's Always Someone Cooler Than You Well, it's more of a "The Guy the Song is Directed to is an Asshole" Song, but the feeling's still there.

Throw It In: During the recording of "Steven's Last Night in Town", Ben's phone rang. It was such perfect timing, coming right between the crescendo and final line, that the band left it in, as well as guitarist Robert Sledge's laugh.

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